KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips climbed early Monday, underpinned by gains in Public Bank, Tenaga and Genting Bhd
, in line with the firmer key Asian markets while US futures were up at the start of trade in the US.
At 9.10am, the KLCI was up 6.61 points or 0.36% to 1,826.43. Turnover was 125.16 million shares valued at RM42.46mil. There were 263 gainers, 59 losers and 153 counters unchanged.
CIMB Equities Research said the KLCI is likely undergoing a short term correction following the break of its uptrend channel support last week.
“The dramatic selloff in US equity markets last week has resulted in three gap-down movements in the local benchmark index over the last 5 trading days.
“These gaps would now act as resistance in the near term if any rebound takes place next. Going forward, the local market is set to track Wall Street’s performance, at least in the near term,” it said.
CIMB Research said the local market may be slightly more subdued ahead of the holiday-shortened week as the bourse will be closed for the Chinese New Year Festival on Friday.
Public Bank rose 14 sen to RM21.94, Tenaga added 12 sen to RM15.84, Genting 11sen to RM8.89 and Bursa 10 sen to RM10.92.
Ajinomoto and Hengyuan added 18 sen each to RM19.80 and RM13.18, Favco 10 sen to RM2.69.
Mega First fell nine sen to RM3.45. Public Investment Bank Research (PIVB) is maintaining its Outperform call with an unchanged target price of RM4.48 for Mega First Corporation Bhd.
However, the research house also cautioned that Mega First’s 60%-owned Shaoxing power plant in China has terminated operations as the concession ended on Oct 22, 2017.
“As a result, we gather Mega First is expected to incur a huge writeoff in the upcoming 4Q results, estimated to be around RM60mil,” it said.
Time dotCom lost eight sen to RM8.30, Petronas Chemicals six sen to RM7.94, Poweroot and Inari lost three sen each to RM1.64 and RM3.31.
Limited time offer:
Just RM5 per month.
